He grasped blindly beneath the seat of his wheelchair for one end of the seatbelt. His fingers fumbled it awkwardly as he brought the buckle up into his lap. He couldn't see that it was twisted backwards and that without adjustment it wouldn't be able to latch into the receiving end. I so badly wanted to take it from him, secure the belt, and push him out the door. Lunch was waiting. But the necessity of his autonomy outweighed my need for efficiency. For at least two minutes he tried without success to snap the ends together, before he finally looked to me for help. With the belt snapped into place, he resolutely gripped the wheels and began his long, slow journey to the lunchroom.
Thursday was my last day of substitute teaching. I've been a sub in the Oceanside School District for the last nine months. Being a stranger to a different group of kids nearly every day made for a great field experience. I'd forgotten how much young kids tattle (constantly!) and how important playground justice is in the mind of a 4th grader.
Some of my most enjoyable assignments, though, were in special ed. Every day there are victories - a concrete lesson in what kids can achieve when they are consistently presented with realistic goals and lovingly challenged to meet them. It's also a testament to the need to allow kids the time and space to accomplish things on their own.
Say what you will about the complexity and burden of the system, but one thing special ed gets right is that every student's program is individualized. Isn't this how it should be, even for normally developing kids? (Forget standardized tests - who wants a "standard" kid anyhow?) Each child is given goals - physical, linguistic, social, cognitive - that are attainable, yet a bit of a reach. The school's job is to periodically (though not constantly) assess the student's progress and, when necessary, re-write the goals to build on what's been achieved.
But none of the goals are the ultimate goal. What's happening, of course, is that as students meet ever-increasingly difficult benchmarks, they are gaining independence. Every word they learn to speak or sign is one more step toward unassisted communication. Every word they learn to read or number sequence they recognize means they can take a step away from the adults who have to do it for them - teachers, parents, caregivers - and a step towards becoming self-sufficient.
There's a parallel, I think, in parenting and education. Our job, from birth to 18, is to always be taking the training wheels off, so to speak, so that at the end of the process we've trained up a young person who can function independently of us. The more we continue to do for kids what they can and ought to be doing for themselves, the more we rob them of the chance to build autonomy - in other words, to grow up.
Simply put: Kids who are never allowed to make decisions don't ever learn to make good decisions. They lack the "lab" experience everyone should have growing up, when it's ok to make bad or wrong decisions and learn from them without too much pain. They're overprotected from failure and wrong answers and are stumped as to how to remedy bad decisions. Ask yourself: are you trying to turn out an 18-year-old who will never make a bad decision (an impossibility), or one who is able to learn from their bad decisions?
A case in point: People my age and younger are taking on tremendous amounts of debt. The skyrocketing cost of college and the pressure to be prematurely affluent has turned many of us to credit cards to finance out-of-control spending. When I was in high school, I didn't get much financial education beyond how to balance a fictitious checkbook. Talking about income was considered impolite, so I and others like me learned the real cost of living the hard way. Sooner or later society will catch on to this and start mandating comprehensive personal finance education in high schools; when they do, personal debt and bankruptcies among 20-somethings will decline.
But as it pertains to the 9-to-12-year-old set, what tasks should a child have mastered? Leaving room for individual differences, I would think that list would include the following:
Ordering for themselves at a restaurant
Interacting with a sales clerk at a store
Knowing their home address
Being able to complete a homework assignment, only consulting an adult when needed with help on directions or difficult questions
Basic time management - here is what I need to accomplish, here's the amount of time I should need, here's the amount of time I have
Basic money management - Dividing up money for saving, giving, and spending
Being able to talk to an adult
Being able to play a game with friends from start to finish, following rules and graciously accepting either victory or defeat
As they attempt these developmental tasks, our job is to stand at the side and coach, model, and encourage them. It is not to do it for them. We should always give kids just what they can handle - no more; but no less, to be sure. That's why in our class we've adopted the ethic that we don't do for kids what they can do for themselves. As kids make decisions, it increases their sense of ownership and responsibility, and it changes learning from "jumping through hoops" to equipping kids the with skills and attitudes to think and act Christian.
To take kids seriously spiritually is to believe - not just profess - that kids are the church of the future. Are we training them now to one day lead and run their church? Would kids take us seriously if we told them that was the case?
Thursday was my last day of substitute teaching. I've been a sub in the Oceanside School District for the last nine months. Being a stranger to a different group of kids nearly every day made for a great field experience. I'd forgotten how much young kids tattle (constantly!) and how important playground justice is in the mind of a 4th grader.
Some of my most enjoyable assignments, though, were in special ed. Every day there are victories - a concrete lesson in what kids can achieve when they are consistently presented with realistic goals and lovingly challenged to meet them. It's also a testament to the need to allow kids the time and space to accomplish things on their own.
Say what you will about the complexity and burden of the system, but one thing special ed gets right is that every student's program is individualized. Isn't this how it should be, even for normally developing kids? (Forget standardized tests - who wants a "standard" kid anyhow?) Each child is given goals - physical, linguistic, social, cognitive - that are attainable, yet a bit of a reach. The school's job is to periodically (though not constantly) assess the student's progress and, when necessary, re-write the goals to build on what's been achieved.
But none of the goals are the ultimate goal. What's happening, of course, is that as students meet ever-increasingly difficult benchmarks, they are gaining independence. Every word they learn to speak or sign is one more step toward unassisted communication. Every word they learn to read or number sequence they recognize means they can take a step away from the adults who have to do it for them - teachers, parents, caregivers - and a step towards becoming self-sufficient.
There's a parallel, I think, in parenting and education. Our job, from birth to 18, is to always be taking the training wheels off, so to speak, so that at the end of the process we've trained up a young person who can function independently of us. The more we continue to do for kids what they can and ought to be doing for themselves, the more we rob them of the chance to build autonomy - in other words, to grow up.
Simply put: Kids who are never allowed to make decisions don't ever learn to make good decisions. They lack the "lab" experience everyone should have growing up, when it's ok to make bad or wrong decisions and learn from them without too much pain. They're overprotected from failure and wrong answers and are stumped as to how to remedy bad decisions. Ask yourself: are you trying to turn out an 18-year-old who will never make a bad decision (an impossibility), or one who is able to learn from their bad decisions?
A case in point: People my age and younger are taking on tremendous amounts of debt. The skyrocketing cost of college and the pressure to be prematurely affluent has turned many of us to credit cards to finance out-of-control spending. When I was in high school, I didn't get much financial education beyond how to balance a fictitious checkbook. Talking about income was considered impolite, so I and others like me learned the real cost of living the hard way. Sooner or later society will catch on to this and start mandating comprehensive personal finance education in high schools; when they do, personal debt and bankruptcies among 20-somethings will decline.
But as it pertains to the 9-to-12-year-old set, what tasks should a child have mastered? Leaving room for individual differences, I would think that list would include the following:
Ordering for themselves at a restaurant
Interacting with a sales clerk at a store
Knowing their home address
Being able to complete a homework assignment, only consulting an adult when needed with help on directions or difficult questions
Basic time management - here is what I need to accomplish, here's the amount of time I should need, here's the amount of time I have
Basic money management - Dividing up money for saving, giving, and spending
Being able to talk to an adult
Being able to play a game with friends from start to finish, following rules and graciously accepting either victory or defeat
As they attempt these developmental tasks, our job is to stand at the side and coach, model, and encourage them. It is not to do it for them. We should always give kids just what they can handle - no more; but no less, to be sure. That's why in our class we've adopted the ethic that we don't do for kids what they can do for themselves. As kids make decisions, it increases their sense of ownership and responsibility, and it changes learning from "jumping through hoops" to equipping kids the with skills and attitudes to think and act Christian.
To take kids seriously spiritually is to believe - not just profess - that kids are the church of the future. Are we training them now to one day lead and run their church? Would kids take us seriously if we told them that was the case?
